Here Comes The 20th Century
A new century, a new world
As the sun was setting on the 19th century, a feverish atmosphere was building across Europe. The old certainties of art, science and Empire were being torn apart, and the first decades of the 20th century saw exceptional innovation and change across every field of human endeavour. Einstein invented special relativity and the quantum theory of light, the first attempt at revolution flared up in Tsarist Russia and literature’s horizons were expanded by figures such as James, Conrad and Proust. Humans flew for the first time in aeroplanes, and the campaign for women’s suffrage gathered pace.
Concepts previously thought unshakeable – the figure in painting, tonality in music – were ruptured in these cataclysmic decades of artistic change. So too were the empires of Russia, Germany, Turkey and Austro-Hungary, as Europe was plunged into volatile, unknown worlds. Artists and thinkers ventured far beyond what had previously been thought possible – they made leaps into unknown worlds just as Sigmund Freud was laying bare the dark uncharted regions of the human subconscious.
HERE COMES THE 20TH CENTURY - THE PROGRAMME
With two packed days of events, you can immerse yourself in the changing world of the early 1900s. A range of talks, debates, discussions and films reveal how the old certainties were shattered by a new generation. Create your own timetable for the weekend, going from intimate discussions, to films, to talks with some of the greatest thinkers of our time. This is a great way to plunge into the 20th century head-first.
Weekend events from 10am – 6pm
Download the full timetable here
SATURDAY 19 – Day Passes and Free Events
Here Comes The Twentieth Century
Baroness Shirley Williams, one of the 20th Century’s most singular politicians, launches our opening weekend with a lecture looking at then tumultuous events of the 20th Century.
Queen Elizabeth Hall, 10:30am.
Entry with Saturday and weekend festival pass
Alex Ross: The Big Bang
Alex Ross focuses on turn-of-the-century Vienna and the moment when composers dared to imagine a new world in this opening lecture.
Queen Elizabeth Hall, 12 noon.
Entry with Saturday and weekend festival pass
The Birth of the Modern
Discover how the art and design world of Vienna in the run-up to World War I and the work of Gustav Klimt, Adolf Loos and Egon Schiele ushered in a new era.
Level 5 Function Room at Royal Festival Hall, 1.30pm & 4.30pm.
Entry with Saturday and weekend festival pass
Ezra Pound: Breaking the Tyranny
Sam Riviere, winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2013 and Halen Carr, author of Verse Revolutionaries, explore Ezra Pound’s experimental poetry.
Level 4 Blue Bar at Royal Festival Hall, 1.30pm & 4.30pm
Entry with Saturday and weekend festival pass
Listen to This
Gillian Moore, Southbank Centre’s Head of Classical Music, talks about and plays recorded extracts of music from the first part of The Rest Is Noise festival.
The Front Room and Queen Elizabeth Hall, 1.30pm & 4.30pm
Entry with Saturday and weekend festival pass
Lisa Appignanesi: Freud and the Modern Age
Lisa Appignanesi talks about the work of Sigmund Freud and it’s impact on the art and thinking of a century. Her talk explores sexuality, gender and Freud’s relation to everyday life.
The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 3pm
Entry with Saturday and weekend festival pass
Bites: Saturday
Offering an intensive tour through the art, politics, social upheavals and scientific breakthroughs of the period, Bites gives you an overview of the era. Four experts give 15-minute talks.
Level 4 Blue Bar and Level 5 Function Room at Royal Festival Hall, 3pm & 4.30-pm
Entry with Saturday and weekend festival pass
Ida Barr’s Music Hall Club Night
Christopher Green, in his guise as pensioner rapper Ida Barr, celebrates the glory of early 20th-Century music hall with a special club night.
The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall, 9.30pm
SUNDAY 20 – Day Passes and Free Events
Breakfast with Schoenberg
Grab a coffee and delve inside the workings of a key piece, Schoenberg’s String Quartet No.2 at this fun and informal session lead by animateur Fraser Trainer.
The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 10.15am
Free
Alex Ross in Conversation with Jude Kelly
Alex Ross introduces The Rest Is Noise, his sweeping account of a century in music in conversation with Southbank Centre Artistic Director Jude Kelly.
Queen Elizabeth Hall, 11.30am.
Entry with Sunday and weekend festival pass
Bites: Sunday
Offering an intensive tour through the art, politics, social upheavals and scientific breakthroughs of the period, Bites gives you an overview of the era. Four experts give 15-minute talks.
Weston Pavillion at Royal Festival Hall 1pm & 2.30pm.
Entry with Sunday and weekend festival pass
Pierrot Lunaire: Presented by the Royal Northern College of Music
Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire is a ‘melodrama’ for voice and instrumental quartet, that brings to life 21 poems by Albert Giraud. Three Royal Northern College of music soloists take on the role of Pierrot.
The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall, 1pm & 2.30pm.
Free
Alexis Teplin in conversation with Stephanie Rosenthal
Alexis Teplin talks about here Hayward Project Space exhibition of paintings and sculptures inspired by early 20th-Century art including Kandinsky and Beardsley
Dan Graham’s Waterloo Sunset Pavilion at the Hayward Gallery, 2.30pm
Free
Julian Johnson: Air From Other Planets
Julian Johnson, Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London talks about why the music of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern shocked Vienna.
Spirit Level at Royal Festival Hall, 2.30pm.
Entry with Sunday and weekend festival pass
Marcus du Sautoy science keynote - Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity
Marcus du Sautoy gives the science keynote, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, first introduced in 1905 and the history of the ‘big bang’ moment in science.
Purcell room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 3pm.
Entry with Sunday and weekend festival pass
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, with Annie Freud
Discussion with Annie Freud, TS Eliot Prize-shortlisted poet and great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud.
Spirit Level at Royal Festival Hall, 4pm.
Neil Bartlett – Salome: Kill That Woman!
What was it that made Salome and the Oscar Wilde Play from which Strauss took his libretto, such a scandal? Biographer, performer and theatre-director Neil Bartlett discusses the dark eroticism of this troubling heroine.
Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, 4.30pm.
Entry with Sunday and weekend festival pass
Death In Venice
A screening of Luchino Visconti’s masterful film adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novel about an ageing composer’s fatal retreat to Venice and his obsession with the lost beauty of youth.
The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival Hall, 8pm.
Free
ON THE WEB
Image gallery
See all Images from Here Comes The Twentieth Century on Flickr
The Guardian
Gillian Moore, head of classical music at London's Southbank Centre, introduces the first instalment of the year-long festival – and the work of Strauss, Mahler and Schoenberg
Salome: Strauss' heroine for the new century
More than a century after Oscar Wilde gave her a voice and Richard Strauss set her to music, the Biblical femme fatale's ability to fascinate and inflame remains undimmed
The Rest is Noise festival: what's your favourite piece of 20th-century music?
In anticipation of the Southbank Centre's year-long The Rest is Noise festival, conductors, musicians and artists share their favourite classical works from a century of musical turbulence.
The Rest Is Noise festival: Alex Ross, Strauss and the 20th century
Watch Gillian Moore in conversation with The Guardian's Laura Barton and Imogen Tilden.
Key figures from the early 20th century
From Edward Elgar to Vaslav Nijinsky, images of those who shaped music in the first part of the last century.
Time to Remember: The Suffragettes - British Pathé video
Watch this clip from the 1950s documentary series Time to Remember, which shows a suffragette parade in the early 20th century.
The Rest Is Noise festival: 1900-1910
From Elgar to Nijinsky, The Guardian looks at some of the people and events that helped shape the opening years of the cultural life of the 20th century
All video and articles at The Guardian.
The Open University
If you have been inspired by one of the many events taking place at The Southbank centre for The Rest is Noise festival, you can take your interest further with the Open University.
The Rest Is Noise at The Open University
Here Comes The 20th Century - The Concerts
Air From Another Planet - Thursday 24 January 2013. Schoenberg changes the music landscape forever. Featuring soprano Barbara Hannigan, pianist Reinbert de Leeuw and the Quatuor Diotima string quartet.
Plus
SSS T !!- Saturday 19 January 2013 - Sunday 10 March 2013. Teplin's paintings and sculptures visually reference Kandinsky's approach of bringing music, colour and composition together.
Ida Barr's Music Hall Club Night- Saturday 19 January 2013. You are invited to a special celebration of the music of the people, hosted by 'the people's pensioner' Ida Barr.
Shocking Salome - Saturday 19 January 2013. Strauss' turbulent music marks the turning point between the old world and the new.
Here Comes the 20th Century Saturday Day Pass- Saturday 19 January 2013.
Here Comes the 20th Century Sunday Day Pass- Sunday 20 January 2013.
Here Comes the 20th Century Weekend Pass- Saturday 19 January- Sunday 20 January 2013.
Pierrot Lunaire- Sunday 20 January 2013. 'Pierrot Lunaire' is a 'melodrama' for voice and instrumental quartet.
Death in Venice- Sunday 20 January 2013. A screening of Luchino Visconti's masterful film adaptation of Thomas Mann's novel.
Piano Experiments - Sunday 20 January 2013. Composers poised on the edge of a new world.
Zeitgeist: Riot In Vienna - Sunday 20 January 2013. Discover the explosive cultural melting-pot of pre-war Vienna. Book now
Extreme Expression - Wednesday 23 January 2013. Music in the febrile atmosphere of Vienna.
Elgar: English Visionary - Saturday 26 January 2013. Strauss declared that Elgar was the 'first English progressivist'.
English Visionaries - Exploring- Saturday 26 January 2013. This talk celebrates the Royal Philharmonic Society’s bicentenary and linked to the London Philharmonic Orchestra's performance of Elgar's 'The Dream of Gerontius'.
My Music: Your Music- Saturday 26 January 2013. Premiere of a new film installation that brings together a range of young musicians voicing their thoughts and visions of music in the future.
Webern & the Second Viennese School - Tuesday 29 January 2013. An immersive concert experience with projections exploring Vienna's musical radicals.
For more information about Here Comes The 20th Century, visit the Southbank Centre ticketing website